Monday, July 09, 2012

Cheating exists in all sorts of forms. It exists in fields as diverse as student plagiarism, to two-timing and tax evasion. Usually it involves some sort of dishonesty or lack of disclosure, misrepresentation, and a lot of grief (or fines or bribes) if it is uncovered.

Basically, I had my first student-cheat today. I was marking some sewing work and it was just so obvious that the work was entirely not part of a natural progression (or even a freak natural progression) of something that a student could make. I had the student re-do certain parts of the work afresh to gauge how genuine this done-and-submitted work could be. At the end of the day, whatever understanding and benefits of doubt I had given her was negated with at least two very obvious mistakes she did - after taking into account the handicaps that could have been in completing this 'believe-me' task.

I'm actually rather generous and understanding and occasionally forgiving (as of last count) when I'm on the receiving end of not-so-honest behaviour. At the end of the day it boils down to the dissonance between being able to overlook the disappointment of being cheated and not wanting to eat sh*t all the time. I'm not always able to resolve this dissonance on the spot, for every case is different.

If you're wondering what I did on the case of today's plagiarism discovery, as per college policy, the project's a fail.

Actually, if that student was at LCF, it would have been instant expulsion.

So... I still have lots of work to mark, I'm going back to my pile of work. Dum dee dum dum.

tangle

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back in the days

learn v. 1. Acquire knowledge of or skill in (something) through study or experience or by being taught. 2. Become aware of by information or from observation. 3. Memorize. 4. archaic or informal teach.